Is Mankind Born Evil....or Good? (page 10)

Farkel

azaria,

You said:

: Somehow I find these comments rather contradictory. You say you can smash any argument that lacks any merit and then further down you say you can’t prove what you say because of your own experiences.

There is no contradiction whatsoever. Making an an argument which is not logically sound CAN be smashed, even if the attacker cannot prove the assertions to be true or false. In any logical argument, the conclusion MUST necessarily follow from the premises. If it does, the argument is logical. If it doesn't then the argument is not logical. An argument which meets the test of logic is still formally considered to be a logical argument, even if all of the assertions are bogus, and as a matter of fact, even if the conclusion is bogus. This is why good scientists use logical to make new discoveries. Once a hypothesis can be proved to be logical, THEN the assertions and conclusion are tested for accuracy.

Example:

"Only people with nine noses are true human beings."
"Women have only five noses."
"Therefore, women are not true human beings."

That is a logical argument! It's an unsound and bogus, but it is considered logical.

In my case, I only presented my opinion that I thought good was more prevelant in the world than bad. I really didn't make any logical arguments, and in fact pretty much agreed with others who've concluded as I have that my question could never be resolved to 100% satisfaction.

You're mixing apples and oranges, azaria.

For those who are chiding me for not responding to your comments. I apologize. I don't have as much free time on my hands as I've had in the past. I'll try to do the best I can with my responses, though.

Farkel

Euphemism

Okay, what's going on here? Non-cursing dude and all-around nice fellow onacruse is defending moral relativism, and irremediable bad boy Farkel is defending the inherent goodness of man? When exactly did we go through this rabbit hole?

Seriously... you've painted yourself into a corner, Craig. If there's no such thing as good and evil, why shouldn't I go out and hold up the nearest convenience store or murder anyone who inconveniences me? For that matter, why do you claim that we should avoid offending others with profane language, or that we shouldn't deceptively join jw-match to make fun of dubs? You can't even be a JWD moderator if you don't believe in good and evil, let alone a decent human being.

Lady Lee

For those who are chiding me for not responding to your comments. I apologize. I don't have as much free time on my hands as I've had in the past. I'll try to do the best I can with my responses, though.

Now Farkel if ya throw in a tune somewhere I'll luv ya forever - ok maybe not forever

jst2laws

OK, two points to make. Farkel has not been contradictory. He stated it was an opinion he could not prove. That is often the case with opinions and why they have little weight in a debate. He did not present his opinion as a fact. Now Farkel, I understand that you are simply stimulating a discussion but can it not endure arguments that support a premise that humans are born neither good or bad? And if one insist on strict adherence to the laws of good argumentation is there not something wrong with the question as I raised the issue earlier on page 2:

Do babes immerge from the womb with labels on their forehead or toe tags that say "good" or "bad"? Has a study been done that established that children with a distinctive cry prove later to be "bad" persons and the others "good"? Don't even suggest one can tell by the level of a babies skin pigment. Can anyone present evidence that a newborn is EITHER evil or good, or evidence that the question "Is Mankind Born Evil.....or Good?" is anything other than a misleading and biased question that itself has no supporting argument?

To quote the book Reasoning Skills page 88 under the topic "Logical Fallacies" :

No in-betweens (also called false dilemma) is a logical fallacy that aims to convince you that there are only two choices: there is X and there is Y, and nothing in between. The "logic" behind this fallacy is that if you think there are only two choices, then you won't stop to consider other possibilities. The arguer hopes that you will therefore be more likely to accept his or her conclusion".

While relaying this I must point it is not aimed at Farkel but at the bias of the question. Since I, as well as several others, do not support either side of this "no in-between" premise I feel rather limited in contributing to the discussion. Jst2laws

StinkyPantz

Isn't it possible to just answer a question without picking it apart first? Or does every question have to scrutinized and second-guessed?

blackout

I imagine the greatest sin is selfishness.

The greatest sin to mankind may also be selflessness as if everybody was selfless we would not be working for our own good but for the good of everything else, therefore we would be putting ourselves in a position of less importance which in turn may well lead to our eventual demise as a species.

Farkel

js2laws,

: I understand that you are simply stimulating a discussion but can it not endure arguments that support a premise that humans are born neither good or bad?

Indeed, it can. It is a wide open issue.

I never claimed to have any right answers, as you well know.

If I rephrased it to say "with the propensity towards (good and evil)" that would have been a little less black/white. That's pretty much what I meant anyway, because I know that absolute black/white thinking is very dangerous. Even in my little thread.

It's kind of disappointing that some folks are insisting on precise definitions of "good/bad" when such a thing doesn't matter. I've clearly shown that the precise definitions don't matter. The opposite of "good" is the exact opposite of ANY definition of "good." No matter how strict or liberal that definition might be.

Back to this comment of yours:

: I understand that you are simply stimulating a discussion but can it not endure arguments that support a premise that humans are born neither good or bad?

Of course it can. But the consequences of your statement being true, or the consequences of the assertion that people are NOT born bad will destroy religion as we know it, once the true believer come to recognize this. Religion lives and dies on the notion that ALL people are born to be bad. That gives them their power over people, because religion says they have the way to get those naive folks who believe that nonsense, out of the mess (and the lie) that religion told them in the first place.

If the world community would just embrace the notion that people are born to be good, and it was spread to the ends of the earth, the very notion of that concept would catch on as gospel and people just might adopt and practice that gospel (true or false) as the way it should be. I know this because for most of the existence of humans, religious leaders have adopted the exact opposite of that, and countless generations have embraced and believed that we are all born to corruption, and without religious leadership, we are all doomed. Therefore, those who get fed up with religious restrictions, leave. Then some of them go on to practice all the things that they were taught they would practice should they leave the restrictive religion they knew while growing up.

However, if religions were taught that we are all inherently good, and people choose to leave those types of religions, they would leave thinking that although, they don't want to practice a religion, they are still good by nature. In such a case, they would practice good, since they believe it is in their nature to practice good.

Those are my thoughts, and I don't claim they are great, or even valid ones.

It's time to change the rules. The negative brainwashing has given us 9/11 and countless wars. It doesn't work. It's time to get a fresh piece of paper and decide what our future children will hear from their earliest years.

I know this has nothing to do with how we are born, but it has everything to do with our future.

Farkel

Lady Lee

Farkel

It's time to change the rules. The negative brainwashing has given us 9/11 and countless wars. It doesn't work. It's time to get a fresh piece of paper and decide what our future children will hear from their earliest years.

Absolutely agree with you Farkel

blackout

Farkel

I am in total agreement with this last post of yours, well done.

Blackout

jst2laws

OK Farkel, Since "It is a wide open issue" I will give it a shot for the premise that we are born neither "good or bad". All I can present is reasoning on this subject. An author I read not long ago said, to paraphrase:

"We spend the first 20 years of our life asserting our independence from the world around us and the next 60 trying to reconnect with it."

While this may be true it is an interesting irony that it ignores the first two years of human development. When a child emerges into the world it is suddenly disconnected from the warm, cozy and safe world it knew in the womb. Bright lights, loud noises, and a new sense of vulnerability and disconnection often results in crying. While the child will later learn to manipulate adults with this tool, newborn crying is simply the natural human response to insecurity. The baby will find its needed security in being cuddled and breast fed. This is about all the newborn wants. Nothing Evil about its needs nor its natural reaction to feeling insecure or disconnected, crying. Nor is there in evidence of Good behavior. They seem to have no concept of the needs of others much less an ability to satisfy them. The point is if we literally observe their behavior we will find little evidence that newborns are either Good or Bad. What we will find is a great fear of being disconnect from human contact, intimate human contact. The reason I have emphasized the need to be connected is because later in life the disconnected individual seems to have little self esteem and purpose in life. A person who does not feel good about himself has a hard time feeling good about others or showing empathy and compassion for others. This results is behavior that the community might call Evil. The disconnected individual can reach the point that his life means nothing to him, which is very dangerous because YOUR LIFE MEANS NOTHING to him as well. I recognize this is only reasoning but it seems more logical than blaming an archaic religio/philosophical concept of evil vs good for bad behavior. If restoring our needed connection is not important, why did Buddha and the Toa emphasis the need to be 'one with the universe' and why did Jesus emphasis becoming "one with God". Why do those who find these connections, frequently enjoy a serenity, love or connection to something great and wonderful? And Farkel, you are right about religion. The great men mentioned above had no intention of starting a religion. They were just showing the Way to connect. The ancient concept of evil vs good needs to go away along with the fundamentalist religions that promote it. Jst2laws

Is Mankind Born Evil....or Good?

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